Interaction Problems in Madytos 1st Millennium BC Gray Wares: Phrygian Relations

Abstract

The first millennium BC Gray Ware assemblage of Madytus share a series of similarities with the north-west Anatolian gray wares that was shaped under the influences of pottery and metal vessels of various cultures, in addition to the gray ware traditions of the Middle and Late Bronze Age in the region. This work in this sense aims to raise several questions on the gray wares from Madytus that recall the Phrygian pottery and metal vessels in relation to chronology and interactions. The pottery examined in this study implies that the relation between the gray wares from Madytus and the Phrygian vessels goes back to as early as the nineth/eighth centuries BC and lasted until the sixth century BC. The nature of relationships between Madytus and Phrygia in terms of gray wares contains problem involving Balkan and Aeolian newcomers from the north, the infiltration of the Phrygian pottery on the shapes and decorations of the pottery of the north-east Aegean interaction zone, and the Ionian colonization activities in the Hellespontus. The gray wares of Madytus with Phrygian influences indicates that the gray ware tradition representing the north-east Aegean interaction zone was not something peculiar to the coastal regions and the islands, since the Phrygian elements detected in the pottery assemblages show that this was extended to the inland regions.